Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a two-level document processing method, and particularly to a method for converting an upstream document into a downstream document, or vice versa, for bringing out an addition/deletion document including information to be added or deleted during the conversion, for refining the addition/deletion document, and for storing reusable information as technical resources. Here, the upstream document and the downstream document constitute a two-level structure, where both document are associated, for example, with software as a product, and the upstream document is a document prepared for and placed near a user, and the downstream document is a document prepared for and placed near a maker.
Description of Related Art
In a series of processes of preparing software and selling it to customers, two types of documents are generally made: A document which is placed near users of the software, and used in an inquiry or estimation, such as specifications or system manuals; and a document which is placed near makers of the software, and used by the makers or other system engineers, such as system survey manuals, or technical specifications.
Assuming that the user side is upstream because the need for the software specification arises therefrom, and the maker side is downstream, the former document may be referred to as an "upstream document" and the latter document as a "downstream document".
Generally speaking, the volume of an upstream document is smaller than that of the downstream document. Since the upstream document is mainly used in activities for receiving orders or business, it does not usually include detailed technical information that would be required by system engineers and described in the downstream document.
On the other hand, information required by users, such as utilization results of the software, comparison of performance with other products, or the like, will be described in the upstream document, but often omitted from the downstream document.
Preparing a new upstream document or downstream document by reusing an existing downstream document or upstream document associated with a particular software product, can be readily carried out if information to be added to or deleted from the original document is clearly designated. Here, prparing means converting an upstream document to a dowstream document by adding and/or deleting information, or vice versa.
These addition and/or deletion items (a document including addition/deletion items will be referred to as addition/deletion document below), however, cannot be readily exploited because they are hidden in personal knowledge or experience, or stored in files of a company. This will cause a great difficulty in improving efficiency of preparing a document.
This presents technical problems in that the addition/deletion document, which exists between the two-level upstream and downstream documents, should be made explicit as technical resources, and that the efficiency of preparing documents should be increased by reusing the addition/deletion document, upstream document and downstream document.
The conversions between the upstream document and the downstream document as described above are common to system engineering work.
More specifically, the system engineering work begins from preparing a demand specification as an upstream document by researching and implementing the need of customers at the upstream side, and ends with actual system design, in which the contents of the demand specification are reflected onto a design specification as a downstream document. Thus, preparing a downstream document from an upstream document, for example, is similar to a series of processes of the system engineering work, in which the system design is carried out in accordance with the need of customers.
Accordingly, once the technical problem of improving the document preparation efficiency has been solved, the method would be applied to the system engineering work. Thus, such solution has been strongly desired.